WTW63: This Is Her Story To Tell... But I'm Telling It

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 63, the final January Little Johns. We get a nice healthy bout of transphobia as always. And we can't understand why on earth John decided to do this story in this way. I've gotten ahead of myself. I'm Thomas. That over there is expert in January Little Johns, on January Little John's biographer, Lydia Smith.

0:00:47 Lydia: God.

0:01:03 Lydia: Oh my god, if I get paid for it, I mean, that's fine, but I would be perfectly fine never thinking about or talking about January Little John ever again.

0:01:08 Thomas: We could see if the Russians want to pay you to do it. Cause that, I mean, look, we're not going to go full evil, but when we saw how much those conservatives like Dave Rubin were making from the Russians, maybe we could like contract a little bit, you know, like do stuff. Hey, we'll do it for you. We're going to cover her anyway. So, you a favorable one. No, we can't, do it's too evil. There's

0:01:16 Lydia: Oh. Yeah.

0:01:26 Lydia: No. I'm, but I'm gonna be honest, right? It's the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yeah.

0:01:34 Thomas: Yeah. Well, they won't pay for it it's the thing

0:01:36 Lydia: Dang.

0:01:37 Thomas: I'm assuming that they're not gonna pay for us to do the opposite of what they want to do, so, I mean, yeah.

0:01:43 Lydia: It, fine.

0:01:43 Thomas: Those Russians sticklers, I think sometimes. Oh well, we'll just have to settle for the amazing support of our patrons at Patreon .com/wherethereswoke, who also got to hear this in one fell swoop and didn't have to hear any ads So join their ranks. And thanks for supporting the show. Patrons who didn't hear this. Never mind. I don't know. They're in my prayers.

0:01:49 Lydia: patreon.com where there's woke yeah maybe they're listening to it on the ad version too too.

0:02:06 Thomas: Out to, yeah, outside Can't wait to get to the final part here after this break.

0:02:11 Lydia: Let's do it.

0:02:15 Thomas: In fairness to John, he does recognize and say that she's an activist. OK. But like what kind of activists are activists equal? Is if you're a women's rights activist, activists? Is that the same as a men's rights activists? If you're, uh, you civil rights activist. Is that the same as, uh, white rights activist? Would that, would those be the same? Like, is a very broad thing to maybe be, I guess. And it sure seems like, it sure seems, like he's painting this, especially by the description that we read a lot earlier, which, if, if you'll remember, was the story of how a difficult relationship between a mother and her child that fell apart during lockdown was inflamed by politicians and journalists, which I don't know what that is.

0:02:20 Lydia: Mm hmm. Mm hm.

0:02:58 Lydia: We have no idea what he's talking about out there, yeah.

0:03:00 Thomas: Powerful culture warriors with vested interests. I don'T think he's just talking about the right there. It sure sounds both sides. But let's

0:03:09 Clip: Really January is mother and activist. And activism often all using words, that escalates things, up the temperature. For instance, despite Brandon saying, There is a concerted right-wing effort right now to paint transgender people as contagious, as a virus in society. It hadn't been crazy for January to worry that her 13-year-old was going through a phase influenced by her friend group. And January in turn, for

0:03:32 Thomas: I'm sorry, what? I'm sorry, I just, to, we're setting up on both sides. Clearly we're sitting up on both sides and he's doing the left side first, you left, I mean just like the human fucking not anti-LGBTQ side. He's doing that side first. For instance, here's this awful rhetoric, which is honestly just a truthful statement that the right is is uh trying to say that there's a contagion that's that's the one side that's the first side, um him saying that

0:03:35 Lydia: There's

0:03:58 Clip: Instance, despite Brandon saying, There is a concerted right- wing effort right now to paint transgender people as contagious, as a virus in society. It hadn't been crazy for January to

0:04:07 Thomas: Saying that So Despite Him saying that, I, that's very, that's very chosen, by the way. This is all scripted, this doesn't, he's not me, he doesn't go off the, off the cuff. This is scripted by multiple people who are fact-checking it and that kind of thing, despite him saying that. So, what's the despite? So, if you start with despite, despite him saying X, actually not X is kind of what you would think logically is thing there. So what is the not X? Despite him say that, what is not X?

0:04:13 Lydia: Yeah.

0:04:33 Clip: Instance, despite Brandon saying there is a concerted right-wing effort right now to paint transgender people as contagious, as a virus in society, it hadn't been crazy for January to worry that her 13-year-old was going through a phase influenced by her friend group, and January in turn makes it sound like story cars

0:04:52 Thomas: Been crazy for her to worry about her going through a phase influenced by a friend group. So want to point out the dichotomy there. Either the thing he said, which is there's a right-wing effort to brand as a contagion, or, well, no, actually no, it's reasonable to be worried about about this thing. That's not the dichotomy here. The dichotony here is, is what Brandon's saying true or reasonable, or is it just trying to inflame? Is he just trying to inflate?

0:04:56 Lydia: By her friend group pin Right.

0:05:21 Thomas: Is that what he's saying?

0:05:21 Lydia: Is those words upping the temperature picture.

0:05:25 Thomas: Yeah. Is that trying to up the temperature or that just him pointing out what the right is doing? Like, honestly, I just don't understand it. I mean, if you point out what the right-wing fucking fascist side is doing in any of these these things, and January 6th and whatever it is, are you upping the temperature by calling it out, and then setting on the other side, oh, oh, this other side is just a, it's just a mother being concerned? Is that what happened? Is sure about that. You sure?

Not that, because what it sounded to me like it happened is it is a mother who, yeah, sure, maybe she started off concerned, then she, um, and became an activist and, uh, endorsed even worse lies by Governor or DeSantis and stood behind him while he signed Don't Say Gay bill, and, and, and, that's the actual both sides. You want to talk about the both sides of the activist. Hey, activists on both sides, they inflame. Look at how much he had to skew January side to even come close to both sides in this one. This is fucking bad. This is bad journalism. This is not good. That both sides thing is terrible.

The one side, one statement that he said that's a fact statement that's accurately describing what's happening on the other side. It was just a good, just a little concerned, just, just not crazy for her to be concerned. Yeah, it wasn't crazy for her to be concerned. I agree, I actually agree, not crazy for her to be concerned. You know what was fucking crazy was, else she did was becoming an anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ activist and a tool of the right and lying about saying her school just decided her child identified differently, just decided, she just endorses that. Like, that's the shit that's fucking insane. Do you want to both sides this? Well, how about you actually present both sides? Uh

0:06:09 Lydia: Yeah.

0:07:05 Lydia: To get even more upset?

0:07:06 Thomas: No, I don't know. Can the, can the fucking audio handle it? I don't know. I'll try to try to step back.

0:07:12 Lydia: Don't know. You might have to leave the room.

0:07:14 Thomas: Jesus fucking Christ.

0:07:15 Lydia: Ahead and pull up the link I sent you. We had mentioned that January gave, you know, speeches and presentations. This was a presentation that she did November 12th, 2021. The month after they filed their lawsuit against the school district significantly

0:07:30 Thomas: Oh, November 12th, 2021. But sure, before we're hearing her interviewed on this. Right. For sure. Before we're here in Brandon on this race

0:07:39 Lydia: Before John John Ronson had said he spent 10 months working on this project and it came out the beginning of 2024. So this was absolutely before he began working on this. This is with the Florida Family Policy Council. And the title title of this event was Empowering Parents to Protect Children Responding to Critical Race Theory. That kind of gives you an idea of like how old it is. Yeah.

0:08:05 Thomas: Theory. But She was just a concerned parent about, uh, transition, no, okay, never mind. She's actually just a fucking fascist activist. Oh

0:08:15 Lydia: And Transgender ideology. So, um, she'll speak a little bit here. We can see what she really thinks

0:08:19 Thomas: Okay, can't wait to hear This is awesome, right?

0:08:20 Lydia: Yeah.

0:08:21 Clip: Husband and I learned after months and months of research is the following. There has been a sharp increase in teen girls suddenly becoming distressed about their gender and coming out as transgender. You're unfamiliar with the work of Dr. Lisa Lipman or Abigail Gail Schreier, please look into their work. They have pioneered research in this area and uncovered what Dr. Littman coins as rapid onset gender dysphoria. And this phenomenon has become a social contagion among teen girls. And now we are seeing teen boys as well.

0:08:54 Lydia: Hey. So, you know, Brandon literally said paint transgender people as contagious as a virus and society. She literally says social contagion in this speech that, by the way, when you sort by view count, this would have been the number one video on YouTube with her name. I did not have to look very hard to find this. I just typed in her name

0:09:18 Thomas: Yeah, This isn't like an obscure secret, a fucking patron-only video. Fake.

0:09:23 Lydia: This is available. This was available to John Ronson, where she literally says the phrase social contagion. Now, the other piece of this that I've been putting pins in along the way is she absolutely believes in rapid onset gender dysphoria, which is medical misinformation This is Fake, it's completely fake, and John Ronson has specifically said he, issues of medical misinformation, he probably would not both-sides because it's dangerous. Never, never does he ever, ever call this out in the episode. And in fact, Parrot's her insinuations when he's talking to Brandon, when he is presenting this information to the audience, that is dangerous. It's dangerous.

0:09:43 Thomas: Fucking fake.

0:10:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:11 Lydia: And like I said, she knows who to here. And that's why she never says R -O -G -D or rapid onset or anything like that with John Ronson.

0:10:20 Thomas: By the way, for all we know she did and he cut it. I don't know.

0:10:22 Lydia: Could be.

0:10:23 Thomas: Could be

0:10:23 Lydia: It would be. But now those, those implications, insinuations, that subtle rhetoric is now being absorbed by the audience and unknowingly, unwittingly they might parrot this stuff too, and what damage is that doing to trans youth now? Yeah.

0:10:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It is not responsible to help in this effort to disguise radical views as moderate views. That is a tool that has been used forever. That hey, I'm not racist. I'm just worried about like, I mean, have you seen the like the numbers of like, you know, white men commit suicide more often? Like, is it not reasonable to be worried about, like, the difference in suicide rate? And it's like, OK, if I'm helping you to actually conceal the fact that in your off off time, not in whatever interview this is, you're marching with a fucking clan. I'm not doing a good thing.

0:10:48 Lydia: Mm. -hmm Yep. Yeah.

0:11:14 Thomas: Unbelievable. So I hard to resist repeating myself because I, just heard her say the thing that he said. We have to listen to this one more time. I am so sorry.

0:11:21 Lydia: Mm. Hmm, uh.

0:11:22 Clip: And activism is often all about using words that escalate things, that up the temperature. For instance, despite Brandon saying, There is a concerted right -wing effort right now to paint transgender people as contagious, as a virus society. It

0:11:37 Thomas: Fucking Christ. I The best, thinnest little thing you could hang on to, as well, she said social contagion, not, not a literal virus. And if that's the fucking hill he wants to die on, like, be my guest, man. That is that, because that this is fucking nuts. You're both sidesing is that one side is calling a very vulnerable group of people a social contagian and is endorsing very harmful stuff about trans people that's fake. Medical misinformation, rapid onset gender dysphoria is not a real thing. It's not fucking real. She has gotten to the point where you've already admitted she has helped cause Florida not use the expert consensus anymore when treating trans youth.

0:11:38 Lydia: I Yeah,

0:12:13 Thomas: Now they do some fucking other thing.

0:12:13 Lydia: They're not getting the medical care that they need. Yeah

0:12:17 Thomas: The, another side of all that, wow. But Brandon said that they're doing this. Literally, Brandon is doing fucking journalism John Brandon is saying what things are. He's just saying his statement was not to inflame and to fucking cause division. He's literally just reporting more accurately than you are what the other side is saying. Unbelievable. Unbefucking leaveable. I just, I just, this is staggering. I don't think this is an accident. This is not an, an accident. You don't accidentally waltz into both sides in this issue in this very deliberate way. You have helped hide, her more radical, hateful agenda.

0:12:25 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah yeah

0:12:57 Thomas: You've helped her disguise that as, oh, just, we're just concerned. Let's just, not crazy to worry.

0:12:57 Lydia: There

0:13:02 Clip: For January to worry that her 13 -year -old was

0:13:04 Thomas: Not crazy to to worry, not crazy to worry.

0:13:04 Clip: Going through a phase influenced by her friend group. And January, in turn, makes it sound like stories like hers were sweeping Leon County schools. Schools. They have infiltrated the classrooms and they are usurping parental authority. But according to the school district, there were fewer than 10 LGBTQ support plans among a population of 33,000 students.

0:13:13 Thomas: Ah, wow.

0:13:26 Lydia: You go. No.

0:13:26 Clip: When the boundaries of facts and fairness are pushed up so hard, the ripples can send people haywire.

0:13:28 Lydia: I understand what his point is there.

0:13:35 Thomas: How are you both sides in this? Like just my guy, how are you fucking both sides of this?

0:13:37 Lydia: Yeah. I saw in a different place the superintendent come out and say when he did a review, it looked like about five the entire district of 33,000 students.

0:13:51 Thomas: That is fucking, this is, I don't, this is like one of the worst both sides thing I've ever heard. You, one thing, you set her up as the other side is being concerned. And then in the very next sentence you acknowledge, oh, but she's not just being concerned, she's also lying and doing a bunch of other stuff, and also that thing that she was concerned about, you've also set up that it's objectively wrong, so it's not crazy for her to be concerned about a thing that's objectively right. And the other side of the activism thing, like, it's, this is the worst both sides thing I've ever seen in my life. This is unbelievable. We

0:14:05 Lydia: Yeah?

0:14:24 Lydia: Yeah. Thing that Ronson mentioned in this that I do want to touch on a little bit more because it didn't get a ton of play is the lawsuit that happened. So the Little Johns we do love a good lawsuit.

0:14:36 Thomas: Love a good lawsuit suit here on, uh, where they spoke Hmm.

0:14:38 Lydia: Um, sued the school district, Leon County School District, and, like, the board and the superintendent in his, you know, own capacity, etc. etc. Rocky Hanna, great name. Um, with this lawsuit, Ronson acknowledges it. He does not say who is their. And when I looked into this a little bit, the and Parental Rights Campaign, led by Bernadette Broyles. And if folk, Bernadette.

0:15:08 Thomas: Oh, that's kind of cool name.

0:15:09 Lydia: And is the same entity that represents Jamie Reed, the whistleblower out of Missouri Missouri that, you know, released a bunch of people's medical information because of the trans kids.

0:15:10 Thomas: Actually, oh I'm sorry, the the What, the whistleblower, or

0:15:24 Lydia: Whistleblower. Yes, it is under the Whistleblowing Act that she pursued her complaint. So that's why I'm calling it a whistleblower well,

0:15:25 Thomas: Or uh, in scare quotes, yeah. Yeah. But it's not really a whistle, it's a liar, yeah.

0:15:34 Lydia: I don't know it protections under the Whistle Blower Act and these are not impartial folks. These are people who have an agenda themselves, incredibly anti -trans. That is their primary goal in life. And their website, it says, you know, under like the campaign that they follow, gender identity is a psychological phenomenon. It is not found anywhere in the body, the brain or in the DNA. And there is no objective medical scan or test that can detect or validate it. And I was like, when I read that, I was, like, yeah, because gender is a construct. So you're

0:16:05 Thomas: Yeah. I think I Think I could be wrong, but I think, yes, I think, like, Same with ADHD, same with, like, There's, there are a lot of things, there's, like, tremendous amount amount of things that we don't have any of that for That are very depression. I think I, like, most, uh, and I don't want to just use, like, negative things, just things involving our brains in that way. Often we can't just do a scan and be like, this is what this is, but yeah, exactly. But like, you wouldn't say any of those things isn't real. That'd be insane. That stupid.

0:16:11 Lydia: Right. Yeah. It threw me. Yeah, I see it right there. Right. It would be really stupid.

0:16:42 Thomas: Can't pee on something and then it tells you what gender you are. That's true.

0:16:45 Lydia: Yeah. They went through this lawsuit back and forth. This is where I found like the support plan. It was an exhibit as part of this lawsuit. And the district ended up filing a motion to dismiss and that was granted. It hinged on a couple different issues. One was that some of the folks have qualified immunity based on their role in district, so the superintendent, for example, and also that the board does not have qualified it on this issue that what occurred, the standard is shocking the conscience, and it did not shock the conscience when you read the facts, And that's required with executive action. So obviously, the Little Johns are not happy about it that the lawsuit has been dismissed. So they have filed an appeal with the 11th Circuit. Oral arguments happened in about mid -April, but there is no decision yet. I've been checking kind of every other day. And as of right now, there is no decision. I don't know what the timeline is on that. We'll see.

But as part of that appeal, everyone filed an amicus brief, including the Manhattan Institute, Goldwater Institute, the Institute for Faith and Family, the Parental Rights Foundation, Concerned Women for America, Alliance Defending Freedom, of course. And one of my favorite state of Montana and Florida and 19 other states. So lots of material there. I guess we'll see how the appeal works out and what the next steps are going to be. But is this not over. This is not över at all.

0:17:08 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That is fine.

0:17:27 Thomas: Yeah that is pretty much over.

0:18:25 Lydia: I don't know that it is. And appealed it and we're waiting for the appeal to come through.

0:18:28 Thomas: It get dismissed? Yeah. But can always appeal that. This is a bad lawsuit. There is nothing there.

0:18:38 Lydia: I guess Yes, I don't disagree. But I think that what we are going to see is this kind of stuff happen more and more and more frequently. And eventually this is going to make its way to the Supreme Court. I'm honestly like pretty nervous about that. I think I saw today there's something on the shadow docket regarding trans youth. So I don' don't know. Yeah. Then just, you know, quick shout out to Rocky Hanna, the superintendent out in Leon County. He ended up getting penalized by the Florida Department of Education when investigated his professional conduct, because when the don't say gay bill passed, he was like encouraging the schools. He's like, don't worry about it.

0:18:58 Thomas: Interesting.

0:19:21 Thomas: What?

0:19:21 Lydia: He was that he wrote to teachers ahead of Don't Say Gay Bill, you know being implemented in schools where he wrote, you do you, and the district would defend them if they messed up.

0:19:33 Thomas: Oh, okay. So he is saying like ignore it. Oh, yeah, gotcha.

0:19:35 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. And So the Department of Education launched an investigation after a Moms for Liberty executive board member for the Leon County chapter wrote a letter to the Ron DeSantis. And it was like stamped like, on "Let's go, Brandon." These are unserious people. But It's scary because they have a line to a point I wanted to make at the beginning when we're equating when we're both sides in this. It's about how two sets of equally held convictions collided with each other from Ronson only one has power only one has power and

0:20:07 Thomas: For Yeah. What? What? Yeah. You know, oh, I understand the left wing activists on they were able to make some recommendations that were that were then abandoned.

0:20:24 Lydia: And then laws were put in place so the recommendations aren't allowed anymore.

0:20:27 Thomas: We don't know how many children they single handedly transgendered, though, like we don'T know in the unmarked vans how many of them they removed their genitals. We DON'T know.

0:20:29 Lydia: Yeah. So Crazy. So Crazy. But Hanna has persisted. He is still the superintendent running for re-election, I believe. Yeah, he had to agree to various sanctions and I think he had, like, a formal reprimand and things like that, but, um, he did not lose his certification or anything like that. Yeah, it's, it's crazy. Leon County. Who would have thought? Yeah.

0:20:41 Thomas: Wow.

0:20:52 Thomas: That's good. Fucking insane. Both Equally held convictions. Yeah, one is trans people exist and the other is fucking, uh, not even allowed to say "gay" in a school. We're not allowed to, like, what the fuck are you talking about?

0:21:08 Lydia: So Crazy. Let's

0:21:12 Clip: When the boundaries of facts and fairness are pushed up so hard, the ripples can send people haywire. Hi, Lisa, welcome. Hi, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you. Still wrapping my brain around this a little bit, but yesterday I heard something. Take the day in December 2021 when a Michigan mother, Lisa Hansen, stood up at her school board meeting. I heard that at least one of our schools in our town has in one of the unisex bathrooms a litter box box for the kids that identify as cats. I know it's going on nationwide. I know it is.

It's part of the agenda that's being pushed. I don't even want to understand it. But I think that people need to be aware of it because I am really upset as a parent that my child is put in an environment like that. It was an extraordinary claim. An American mother was saying the cat litter boxes, the places where cats use the toilet, were being put into schools for use by pupils who identify as Cats.

This was, as far as we can can tell the first time this allegation was made. But after that, it spread fast. Here's Nebraska State Senator Bruce Bosselman. School children dress up as animals

0:21:17 Thomas: Who which people. Wait, fucking

0:22:22 Clip: During the school day. They meow and they bark. And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary? I even heard that a student identified as as a cat and the school didn't provide the litter box so

0:22:22 Thomas: Christ I forgot I didn't realize like hey no problem with all that, but like, sanitation-wise, like that, I mean, come on, really?

0:22:42 Lydia: Who's in charge of changing it?

0:22:46 Thomas: Wow.

0:22:47 Clip: The student went in and defecated on the floor. Really, really. And here's the hugely successful podcaster, Joe Rogan. My friend, his wife is a school teacher and she works at a school that had to install a litter box in the girl's room because there is a girl who's a furry who identifies as an animal and her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter litter box in one of the stalls.

0:22:51 Thomas: That's unbelievable. Oh, Wow, crazy. She works at the school no no it's not, we covered this badgered, yeah. She Like dressed as

0:23:13 Lydia: No, pun intended.

0:23:16 Clip: He made it to the UK too.

0:23:16 Thomas: A badger too. Unbelievable.

0:23:18 Clip: Here's Piers Morgan on Talk TV in June 2023, a year and a half after the original rumours began. This stuff reads like a joke, but it's really not funny when you get into the weeds of it. This is limitless self -identity gone bonkers. Talking in cat language, including meowing, that is not just having a bit of fun being a cat. That is actually assuming the identity of an animal that this person is not, and then and insisting everybody else conform to it.

0:23:17 Lydia: Oh, God.

0:23:21 Thomas: A and a half Oh my God.

0:23:46 Clip: Given how viral this story has gone, a great effort has been made by American journalists to track down a school where children identify as cats and are provided with litter boxes.

0:23:46 Thomas: Hey, just say no, it's a lie.

0:23:57 Clip: Schools across the United States have been scrutinised.

0:23:57 Thomas: And move on. God. Yeah.

0:24:00 Clip: Leads followed. Rumours investigated. And no litter boxes have been found. Anywhere. Except for here. I'm Ryan Price, and I teach high school English in Vacaville, California, at a school called Buckingham Collegiate Charter Academy. When this rumor started to flourish, people looked far and wide for examples of classrooms where it may be true. And the closest that they got to was your classroom. Will you tell me the story? Well, okay. So I have a popular social media account that I post to. So, I made a video that I posted on my TikTok, which was just making light of the fact that students go to the bathroom too much during class just to get out of class. So.

I told them I'd set up a private bathroom in in the classroom, where they could use a bucket and I would have a privacy screen set up for them and all this stuff. It was just meant to be funny. But people thought it was real. And commentators wanted to know why. Was it because his students identified as cats? And so I made a follow -up video explaining why we have these emergency buckets in the class room. Have It's because of school shootings, you guys. Right?

And I hate to just say it bluntly like that, Yeah, but when I first started teaching, we didn't have these buckets in the classroom. But now every classroom has a bucket like this in there.

0:24:05 Thomas: Oh. Wow, very close to us. Oh.

0:25:10 Clip: That's the reality of school in America, right?

0:25:15 Clip: Ryan means that the buckets are emergency toilets in case students have to hide from a shooter for a long period. So people being upset about our bucket video, they're upset about the wrong thing. Imagine a custodian going and cleaning litter boxes all day. Imagine kids who are already so self-conscious suddenly feeling comfortable enough to use the bathroom in a litter box in the classroom. It's just absurd when it became clear that the litter box rumors were a myth, Joe Rogan and the Nebraska state senator retracted their comments but there's surely people out there who still believe it given the dizzying way that the gender wars are fought for me the litter box story is a reminder that we can all fall for moral panics and

0:25:43 Thomas: It was clear right away, like immediately as he said it. Oh, Yeah. Really we can all. Oh, oh, hold on.

0:25:59 Lydia: The thing, yeah. Fall for moral panics except you have Joe Rogan for example saying my friend's wife is a teacher and she witnessed this and he told me about it and and asserting it as like as knowledge that he knows because of these individuals. And then when it's called out as like this is fake, this is a lie, then he just, you got it wrong. No, you literally lied. You made up information. What? I don't know. I don't know.

0:26:00 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:26:31 Thomas: He's going to say, yeah and also here's Brandon saying, you know they're making up stories about litter boxes. So really it's the same thing. Like, I want to know what is going to be the both sides of this. Why the fuck are we talking about this at all? Like, why, why are we putting this in the context of the stronger person's convictions the they will succumb to untruths.

0:26:53 Thomas: I don't think that's true. Incredibly convicted on some issues like, for one, reproductive freedom. I don' t know, anti -racism, other stuff. Like, does that correlate with me believing untruths?

Seems like the real correlation is whether or not you are part of a fucking culture war that's trying to attempt a fascist takeover of the goddamn country and is part of of a mass misinformation network in the interest of furthering that goal, like, strikes me as, like, we talk about risk factors. I, I don't think that if you study this objectively you would find that strength of conviction is the key variable. It kind of matters which side you're on in this whole world, because please, please, please, John, give me your both sides here.

What's, what's the left side of this cat box story, like? All do, do your very best. What is the left side of it? But Here's the thing though, I actually think this is very intentional. I think that he is front-loading with this litter box story, in addition to that being kind of like a semi-interesting detail. I don't, the shooting thing is kind of weird to me, by the way. I'm like semi-skeptical of that because it just seems like, don't, like, know, like, how often is that gonna, do they also have, like, food, uh, maybe it just is, like, maybe

0:26:34 Lydia: Yeah. Mm not real.

0:28:07 Lydia: Know, maybe, yeah, right.

0:28:08 Thomas: But it's also we, I, something about that guy is a little bit weird to me, like, I, I'm not sure how much I trust that, but neither here nor there, that doesn't matter. The cat boxes thing isn't real, that doesn't matter at all. Um, we're hearing this and I, I can tell you rhetorically, back when I was a fucking awful centrist, the thing that you do is when you want to criticize one side, you start by, it's the compliment sandwich, essentially. You start by starting off with the other side and, like, oh, here's this ridiculous thing that this side does. Now that I've earned a little cred with that, here is my critique that I'm a little bit more scared to make about the other side. I tell you that that is a very real way that people will present stuff like this to try to, it's natural. I mean, it is a decent enough rhetorical technique to and try it can be used responsibly, like to try to build rapport on one side so that you can then use that rapport to critique that side, kind. And So what comes after this?

0:28:33 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:06 Clip: That stronger a person's conviction, the more likely they will to untruths. And, as Ryan the teacher says, the litter box story was always, when you took a moment to think about it, very implausible. But I think this has also been a story about how there's sometimes a reluctance to accept that young children can be influenced by the media and friend groups, and schools can get caught in the middle, unsure of the best thing to do. And in the midst of it all is a child who, who presumably never wanted to be a pebble thrown in a pond, creating all of those ripples. How

0:29:18 Thomas: Yeah. Interesting.

0:29:36 Thomas: What? So do you see what I mean there with that technique? Like, you've set up a ridiculous litter box story, right? Am I right? Yeah. But also this is also a story of, you know, like, maybe the other side is, and what does he say? Yeah.

0:29:42 Lydia: No.

0:29:54 Clip: Was always, when you took a moment to think about it, very implausible. But I think this has also been a story about how there's sometimes a reluctance to accept that young children can be influenced by the media and

0:29:57 Thomas: Implausible, but also sometimes Okay. Who is that side? Because I didn't hear anything in this episode about that. Did you hear anything about that? I mean, I know he's ostensibly saying that that's, you know, when he's both sides and on the one hand you have this fucking nonsense mess and then on the other hand you have, well, there's a reluctance to admit that, to how fucking passive he has to get and like how much he has to minimize their, there, there can be a reluctence admit the children can be influenced by the media. No, there's not. Nobody, are you talking about, did, did we hear any interview where Where Brandon or whoever's on that side was like, children are never influenced by media ever.

0:30:12 Lydia: Yeah.

0:30:42 Thomas: Not at all.

0:30:42 Lydia: I don't think anybody in their right mind would say that. I mean, like, that's, that's always been the case. It's a very impressionable time

0:30:50 Thomas: It's a good sign that you're perhaps inappropriately both sides-ing as if the version of the other side you have to make is fucking, look how watered down that shit is. Listen to how homeopathic we get here with the watering down. You know, it's like one part per trillion of this statement.

0:30:50 Lydia: Yeah. No.

0:31:05 Clip: Been a story but how there sometimes a reluctant to accept, that young Young children can be influenced by the media and friend groups, and schools can get caught in the middle, unsure

0:31:07 Thomas: Sometimes a reluctance to accept that can be influenced by the media.

0:31:15 Lydia: Know. It feels like that comes out of left field. Like, I don't understand why that was, again, scripted into this episode.

0:31:24 Thomas: This is I you strategically as a rhetorical bit of writing. This is 100% trying to sneak in a of the trans side as softly as you can, but the way you know it's bullshit is, like, if that were really your concern, if that was really your concern as stated, just facially, okay, I'm just going to take you at your word, no one would ever say that, that's not a, "Well, I'm concerned that some people are reluctant to admit that children can be influenced by the media or their friends." No holds that position. You can only be referring to something endorsement of the of the idea, and maybe he doesn't want to go all the way, whatever. You can only be referring to, well, what that really means is there's rapid onset gender dysphoria, and that does happen. That can only be what you mean, because the thing you actually said in your script was nothing. That's actually nothing. Literally fucking nothing. So what are you really meaning? Not crazy to read into that because the only plausible reading is reading into it.

0:32:28 Lydia: Especially when he parrots the insinuations throughout the episode, too. Like, it really does feel like he is sympathetic to that medical misinformation and, you might believe it. I don't know.

0:32:42 Thomas: Is the only thing that makes any of this make sense. That's the thing, like, he has been very careful, I think, because he does seem to be scared of being seen a certain way. I think the only way that doing any of this makes any fucking sense is if that is where you're coming from. Well,

0:32:57 Clip: Of the best thing to do. And in the midst of it all is a child who, presumably, never wanted to be a pebble thrown in a pond, creating all of those ripples. How is your child doing now? I appreciate you asking that question. I'm very protective over her privacy. This is her story to tell. She has desisted.

0:33:05 Thomas: What does that mean? Does that mean

0:33:16 Clip: She is free of any kind

0:33:16 Thomas: Except this is her story to tell, um, never mind, I've just told the entire thing on a, on a BBC, uh, podcast, but it's her story to tell.

0:33:19 Lydia: I'm going to tell the whole thing. Yeah. Tell everywhere I can. And yeah.

0:33:27 Thomas: What a weird thing to say. "This is her story to tell." You know, the story I just told you, that's her story to tell? What, oh, so was, was this off the record then? What?

0:33:37 Clip: Of confusion over her sex, but that is all I would say. It's taken a very long time and a very long road to repair our relationship and we are still working on that.

0:33:37 Lydia: Yeah,

0:33:48 Thomas: That is. That's weird. I have a question. Why would that be? Cause, like, you've won January, you've convinced her. It sounds like, by your telling, that she wasn't ever trans. And so I, I, aren't you the hero of this story? What is the residual problem there? Like, me, it sounds like maybe the daughter doesn't agree with you on this, possibly. Yeah.

0:33:50 Lydia: Yeah.

0:34:06 Lydia: Or that they resent their mom using their story for all of these things and never correcting the record with what Ron DeSantis is saying in very public situations. Like, yeah, I very least, I would hope that January's kid is not happy about that because that is honestly very fucked up.

0:34:10 Thomas: For, for all of this. Well, It's her story to tell, so we, I guess, we'll hear from her, I don't know, or not. Very weird. Oh.

0:34:36 Lydia: There we go. I have just a couple little parting words, I guess.

0:34:42 Thomas: I do want to ask, um, heard, heard her use the phrase that, uh, her daughter has desisted. That's weird. No follow-ups on that by John. What is that? I don't know what that means, but

0:34:42 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. "Desistence" is for all the anti-trans folks. Is something where you the is related to criminalization, the process of abstaining from crime or antisocial behavior. Behavior, and what is meant in the anti-trans space is that they no longer identify as being transgender, they're do not have gender dysphoria, and they are aligned with the sex assigned at birth, essentially. Yeah.

0:35:23 Thomas: The point of that kind of terminology, because, because like a normal fucking thing would be, oh, they're not trans, not like cease and desist, like, is it like so the language Yeah. No.

0:35:32 Lydia: Yeah. No. No. It's very loaded. Uh -huh.

0:35:35 Thomas: Yeah. I'm just emphasizing, like, the language is meant to suggest that there's a, an effort that they've resisted. You know, they've, like, someone was trying and they desisted.

0:35:35 Lydia: Yeah.

0:35:45 Lydia: Yeah, so, so this is something that is very popular. Chloe Cole, you know, is a pretty famous anti -trans activist who as transgender, ended up having a double mastectomy and then desisted.

0:35:51 Thomas: Don't know who that is. Oh, right. Yeah.

0:35:59 Lydia: And so this is someone that the right loves. She goes around the country and participates in like Daily Wire stuff, like everything. Um, this, idea of, um, is about like normal again, in quotes, right?

0:36:13 Thomas: Jesus Christ.

0:36:14 Lydia: Normal. Yeah. It's, it's pretty messed up. This is something where January is taking this word, this idea, and just literally like post pictures of herself on Twitter, her holding signs about, you know, desisting and, you know, don't let them take our kids kind of thing. And she's posting these pictures everywhere. Yeah.

0:36:33 Thomas: Yeah, that she's a radical, and John does not interrogate that at all.

0:36:41 Lydia: I just have one little, like, man, it's like an action, call the action, I guess, for folks or, like, for the left. And it's we understand that when this situation occurs for parents, a lot of parents don't know what to do, how to handle it, who to go to for help. They often turn to various support groups.

And I was reading a New York Times article about a family kind of going through the situation in which the child did participate and, you know, got to share their their feelings about whether or not they felt their parents were supportive, etc. But within the article, it talked about how when parents go to these support groups and of them consider themselves like pretty liberal and stuff, but they don't know who to ask for help in the support group itself.

A lot of people are getting connected with the Child and Parental Rights Campaign. That's Bernadette Broyles, who right, is anti -trans and, you was the counsel for January Littlejohn, counsel for Jamie Reid again. And are getting connected to someone who is going to spout these well -crafted anti -trans rhetoric that might not initially sound very

0:37:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:56 Lydia: Terrible. And then, then it pulls people in. And so I think the left needs to figure out how can we intervene? How can we create a place that parents, when they're going through this, and get support from other parents, that we have entities that can also help support them as well? And then those are the things that are getting recommended to other parents rather than this insane anti-trans group that is creating monsters out of people who might have been normal otherwise.

0:38:21 Thomas: Yeah. I think so. And I would say, this is my opinion, that those are places where we need to work with compassion and we need to, like, I actually think that's like the difference between perhaps driving a parent to one of those radicalized groups and not might be giving them at least the space to kind of grow and maybe be wrong a little bit about this very new issue, you know, again, that's a thing that is done in the privacy of one of those groups or a session or a therapy session or something like that. And this what January is doing is anti-trans activism. Those aren't the same thing. And, and, and for him to keep putting away as just doing an innocent parent thing when what she is is an anti-trans activist, it's very disingenuous. And I do think, too, that part of that ability that you're talking about, it's almost like terrorist recruiting. It's like, you know, radicalizing. It IS.

0:38:43 Lydia: Mm hmm.

0:39:23 Thomas: Like, not, exactly, but close, you KNOW, like radicalizing, they start, they always say this. Like they recruit people into these things, they start more normal and then they get more and more crazy. Yeah.

0:39:35 Lydia: It is. Volleyball.

0:39:36 Thomas: Any of that stuff. And I think what John Ronson is doing is actively help to that disguise. Like he's actively helping them. Him. They call it like hide their power level or whatever, like there's a better term for it. But, I you think That's a big issue with what he's doing here.

0:39:43 Lydia: Yeah.

0:39:53 Lydia: You think he's doing that or accidentally?

0:39:55 Thomas: I think it's I think it is because of his centrism.

0:39:58 Lydia: A blind spot.

0:39:58 Thomas: Yeah, I think it I think people like him think both sides of them centrism is like the enlightened thing to do. It's the smarter thing to do. It seems more compassionate. But I think there could could be context in which that's true, but we've reached a point of, yeah it's not the in. It's just not, and it's actively causing harm to pretend it is. I

0:40:11 Lydia: It's not the world we live in now. Yeah. Yeah, especially when the rates of suicide and abuse in the trans community are as horrific as they are. Just incredibly dangerous.

0:40:26 Thomas: I think I've personally, I've made my judgment now. This is, again, this is my opinion, and I know that folks are so worried about being labeled something to the point where, you know, they do an incredibly obscure, and weirdly hiding in their criticism of the trans like or whatever. I'm, I am I not interested in trying to label John Ronson for the purposes of cancellation or whatever, but, um, what I am interested in, I I'm extremely put off by people who won't just say what the fuck they're feeling and thinking.

0:40:55 Lydia: Yeah.

0:40:55 Thomas: Especially, um, when it's a, clearly a very controversial point of view. Like going to do a whole thing, but you can't just come out and say what your criticism is. Um, opinion is that this this whoever whether it's John and or the people working on this, but I, you know, he's he's ultimately, it's him and someone else I think mainly doing the work, that this comes from a place of, if not transphobia, this comes from a transphobic-curious place, this comes from a turfy place. It's the only way this makes sense to me, in my opinion. None of this makes sense without some weird motivation there that that they're not willing to say. Yeah.

0:41:29 Lydia: So here's the thing. It doesn't make sense because like if you look at his previous history, he had a big falling out with Graham Linehan, who folks interesting to me is that like Ronson has in previous places, it seems that he is aligned with what they refer to as trans rights activists. And I think that language is probably really strong. It feels to me, honestly, like John Ronson is living that both sides life and kind of evaluating. This is probably cynical, but evaluating the position of his audience for different things and kind kind of like fluctuating just a tiny bit, just a tiny bit. I don't know that he necessarily holds those but I also don't know that he holds the other beliefs.

0:42:22 Thomas: Interesting.

0:42:22 Lydia: It's impossible to tell, and I think it's done purposefully. And I will say Julie Bindel is an anti-trans individual out in the UK, and the way that she characterizes it is, um, that he's a coward and that he presents himself as pro-trans, but it probably just has a lot to do with his U.S. audience and I don't know if that's wrong. I don't know if that's wrong. He hasn't given us much indication to prove that it's wrong. I'll say that. No,

0:42:44 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah, I haven't, I haven' researched it, but did you come across any nice, like, strong pro-trans statements or anything? I don' know, is there any evidence of, in what way we

0:43:01 Lydia: I mean, like, he called out Graham Linehan, but everybody was calling out Graham Linehan and Linehan tweeted out a picture of a women's basketball team with a trans woman standing among them. And John Ronson said he was acting like a bully. Understanding, that kind of spiraled. Then just sort of, things fell apart. Art, no

0:43:28 Thomas: Mean. Yeah, credit where credit's due. Um, I think that's consistent with a, I don't know, like, I would, I, I wish that, that's kind of the point of all this, too. I wish I had a firm idea of where he stands, because you could also take that to be like, all right, you're bullying, as in like, this isn't worth saying, or that, you know, it doesn't really, I mean, some amount of credit for it, sure. But it also doesn't sound like he went out of his way to reaffirm the existence of trans people in any way.

0:43:58 Lydia: And it was done in a public forum of you, which, again, to my earlier point, like, I just don't know. I don't know what he truly believes, um, what he does for audience sake, I don't know.

0:44:09 Thomas: Yeah. I do know that this entire episode served the purpose of normalizing anti-trans bigotry and minimizing the horribleness of one side while somehow both sides in it with the pro, against trying to get trans kids to, I don't know, kill themselves, like, to both sides that, and the both sides is him just pointing out, hey, there's an effort to make trans people look like a contagion, which is something that objectively is true and is something that you found that January Littlejohn said Boy, not good, that's really bad.

0:44:41 Lydia: His guest actually says. Mm hmm. Yep. Next time.

0:44:49 Thomas: God knows what it'll be. There's plenty to choose from.

0:44:50 Lydia: I know.

0:45:10 Lydia: Hunt, sorry, um, the kids are here, guys. I'm, I'm working. Okay.

0:45:16 Lydia: I, well, mom and dad will be done in a little bit. Okay, all

0:45:19 Thomas: I almost said J.R.R., what's her name?